This document provides guidance on writing a personal narrative essay. It discusses including important components like setting, theme, characters, and plot. It recommends introducing the background and "hooking" the reader with an interesting opening. The introduction should prepare the reader and include a thesis statement about what will happen. The body should tell the story chronologically with transitional sentences. The conclusion should share a lesson learned or prediction.

1. Personal
Narrative
Getting started!

2. First Writing Assignment
Think about:
• When was an important time in my life?
• What has happened in my experience that
I would enjoy writing about?
• Is there an event in my life that other
people would enjoy hearing/reading
about?

3. Components of a story
• Setting=Where the action in a story
happens.
• Theme=Basic idea or point of the story
• Mood=Feeling or atmosphere the author
creates for the story.
• Characters =The people in the story
• Plot=What happens in the story

4. Introduction-Narrative
• Describe the background of the story
(characters, setting, atmosphere)
• Prepare the reader on what to expect in
the story.
• Folse (2004) believes that in
introductions, you should have a “hook”
that will grab the reader’s attention, as
well as a thesis that organizes the essay.

5. What is a “hook”?
•The first two or three lines in the
introductory paragraph that grabs readers’
attention.
•Help set the stage for the story.
•Make readers guess what will happen next in
the story.

6. How to write a good “hook”
•Like a fish getting hooked by a fisherman, you
need to “hook” your readers and make them want
to read your essay.
•If it’s a good hook, people would want to read
your essay.
•If it is not a good hook, then no one wants to read
your essay.

7. Some suggestions…
• Ask a question. (How many of you spend hours
downloading music to your iPod?)
• Use an interesting observation (Because of the
economy, President Obama is having problems
sleeping well these days.)
• Create a unique scenario. (Traveling at more
than 300 km per hour, he traveled to another
dimension.)
• Use a famous quote (“To be or not to be; that is
the question.”)
• Use a statistic (If world temperatures continue to
rise, Singapore will be under water by 2050.)

8. Hooks-Connecting
Information
• After the hook, the writer usually writes
three to five sentences that connect it to
the topic.
Example from Keith Folse
Her daily routine was not glamorous. She
did everything from sweeping the floors
to cooking the meals. If someone had
asked her, “Are there any household
chores that you practically hate?”, she
probably would have answered, “None.”

9. Example
Write a sample hook for this paragraph:
At 16 I worked in the toy department of
Lotte Department Store, where I learned
that I enjoyed helping people. I always
went out of my way to help people
because I learned that if I worked hard, I
would succeed. This is the reason why I
want to go to a businessman and go to
business school.

10. Example
I had never been more anxious in my life. I
had just spent the last three hours trying
to get to the airport so that I could travel
home.
What questions do you have?
What do you think will happen next?

11. Thesis
• States the main idea of the essay (thesis
statements).
• In narrative essays, they introduce the
action that begins in the first paragraph of
the essay.

12. Examples
1) Now, as I watched the bus driver set my
luggage on the airport, I realized that my
frustration has only just begun.
2) I wanted my mother to watch me race
down the steep hill, so I called out her
name and then nudged my bike forward.
3) Because his pride wouldn’t allow him to
apologize, Ken now had to fight the
bully, and he was pretty sure that he
wouldn’t win.

13. Body
• Contains most of the plot-the supporting
information.
• Can be organized in many different ways.
• One way is chronological, or time, order
(where you give more information about
the story as it proceeds in time).

14. Transitional Sentences
Have two purposes
1. Signal the end of action in one paragraph
2. Link the next paragraph.
Gives your reader an ability to follow
happens and predicts what will happen
next.

15. Concluding Paragraph
Can have two functions:
1. The moral of the story, or what the
character(s) learned from the experience.
2. Make a prediction about what will happen
next based on what happened.

16. Examples
Moral: The little boy had finally learned that
telling the truth was the most important
thing to do.
Prediction/Revelation: I can only hope that
one day I will be able to do the same for
another traveler who is suffering through
a terrible journey.